Plus: The Rangers have the second best power play in the league and the Caps penalty kill went 5/5 against the them, which included a length 5on3. It’s also worth noting that the Caps killed off all the penalties in yesterday’s game as well.
Minus: Giving up goals in the first minute and last minute of a period is just brutal and the Caps gave up two in the first period like that. Those type of goals are killers that stop any time of momentum you might have. You want to never give those up, especially two in one game, and especially two in one period.
Key Moment: If the Caps ended up winning the game then the 5on3 penalty kill would have been the answer but since they didn’t get the win, then probably the Rangers goal in the last minute of the first. The Caps were playing well but they left a Ranger all alone in front of the net who whacked in his own rebound to give the Rags a 0-2 lead late in the first. Without the goal then maybe the Caps could have left New York with the win or at least a point.
Caps Player of the Game: I’m sure this is getting old but Charlie Lindgren was probably player of the game again. It’s not like he was hung out to dry the whole game or anything, he’s had better game stealing performances but he had about three top tier saves that could have made the score more lopsided.
Final Thoughts: Yes it was a loss but the Caps played about as well as they could. They were without Alexander Ovechkin, Rasmus Sandin, and Sonny Milano, playing a very good team on their own ice, and they almost pulled out a point.
It’s worth noting the refs seemed like they had money on the Rags with a lot of weak calls on the Caps while the Rags were taking blatant penalties with no calls. It happens, and it’s unknown if their weak power play unit would have done much, but you never know.
Kuznetsov has looked much better at wing than at center. It will be interesting to see once Ovechkin is back if Kuznetsov will stay at wing or return center. Kuznetsov looks more engaged and doesn’t have to worry about all the defensive details, which he seems to hate anyways. Hope they keep trying him at wing.